Update 10/22/14: With the release of 10.10 (Yosemite), unfortunately there’s not much improved USB graphics behavior to report, as the key issues outlined in this post still exist.

We’ve posted an update regarding USB graphics and other USB device behavior with Yosemite that can be found here.

DisplayLink has recently released an updated beta driver that contains some fixes, though the larger issues outlined in this post and elsewhere are still present. Beta driver v2.3 is compatible with OS X 10.8.5, 10.9.x, and 10.10.

Good news: Mac OS X 10.9 is available today and for the first time, it’s a free update, so app and hardware developers will be able to start counting on Mac hardware running the latest software in general (kinda like the iOS world).

Bad News: Mac OS X versions have historically broken some percentage of 3rd party hardware, and OS X 10.9 appears to have a particularly big impact. Many hardware devices will need updated drivers for 10.9, either because the older drivers simply don’t work at all, or because they work but with new problems.

If you can, it may be better to wait for the adventurous to forge ahead and report their findings on 10.9, before taking the upgrade.

DisplayLink Based USB Products

Users with DisplayLink-based USB Docking Stations and Graphics Adapters should avoid updating to 10.9, if at all possible. See here for details.

DisplayLink-based USB devices that work well on 10.8.5 (up to 4 additional USB displays) will be broken for most uses by the 10.9 update. In particular, 2+ USB displays or any HDMI-attached displays (even non-DisplayLink) don’t work reliably because of screen configuration issues.

We don’t know when this is going to be fixed — but evidence is it will require fixes both from Apple and DisplayLink, so that will take a significant amount of time.

USB Network Adapters

Mac OS X 10.9 (and 10.8.5) includes support for both the AX88772 chipset and the AX88178 chipsets in our USB 2.0 USB Ethernet adapters, and UD-160-A docking station. For these chips, we recommend first uninstalling any ASIX drivers and repairing disk permissions before upgrade to 10.9 (relying on your built-in net connection), and just plugging in to use the Apple drivers after upgrade.

For our USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter, an updated ASIX driver is required. In addition to Mavericks support, compatibility issues with Android File Transfer seem to be resolved. That said, we’re seeing reports of some new problems with 10.9 and would recommend caution. For those who have already updated to 10.9, the compatible driver is available at:the latest ASIX driver version to get 10.9 compatibility. Note that this driver does not yet have the new 10.9 signature, so you’ll also need to click ok on installing the driver unsigned.

USB Serial Adapter

Serial devices will be automatically created (“ls /dev | grep serial”” to see them), however the network control panel in 10.9 now no longer shows serial devices as connected, even when they’re in use.

Other Devices

For all of our other devices, we’re recommending in-box drivers, or they don’t require 3rd party driver installs (hubs, cables, etc).

If you have a question about a product we didn’t mention, please feel free to comment below. We’ll get it added.

And if you hit any 10.9 upgrade problems with Plugable products, we’ll work to help. Just email support@plugable.com anytime.

5 comments on “Before You Upgrade To Mac OS X 10.9 (“Mavericks”)”

I own your “USB2-HUB4BC 4 Port USB 2.0 Hub with BC 1.1 Fast Charging”. I’m sure you already know, but it’s a great piece of kit – my iPad mini charges up a dream. However, Mavericks (on a MacBook Pro 6,2) certainly doesn’t know the last bit! Whenever I plug my iPad in, it notifies me that “my iPad is not charging” and that I should “plug it in to a USB port on this Mac” – even though it is. Very annoying as it’s one of the ‘alert’ notifications that don’t go away by themselves.

My StarTech ECESATA1 eSATA Expresscard doesn’t seem to work with Mavericks. It used to show up as SiliconImage3132. Now it shows as a Mass Storage card but no attached drives appear anywhere in the OS, not even Disk Utility.